"EVERYONE STAY BACK FROM LEON NOW!" Sarah's voice cut through the present moment with desperate urgency. She recognized the signs—the subtle tremor in Leon's hands, the thousand-yard stare, the way his breathing had changed from regular to ragged in mere seconds.

  "W-what? Why?!" Adriana asked, confusion evident in her young face.

  Kennedy grabbed her arm, yanking her backward with surprising force. "Move!" he hissed, pulling her behind the tree line where Queen and Sarah had already taken cover.

  The transformation was as swift as it was horrifying. Leon's eyes filled with blood, the green irises vanishing beneath crimson. Veins bulged across his face and neck, pulsing visibly beneath his skin. His posture changed, becoming more predatory, more animal than human.

  The first bandit didn't even have time to react. Leon closed the distance between them in a heartbeat, his hands seizing the man's jaw. With a savage wrench, Leon tore the entire mandible free, cartilage and tendons snapping with wet pops as blood fountained from the gruesome wound. The bandit collapsed, hands clutching the ruin of his face as he drowned in his own blood.

  The second bandit managed half a step backward before Leon's sword cleaved through him diagonally from shoulder to hip. The two halves of the man separated, intestines spilling onto the dirt road like glistening ropes as he fell in two distinct pieces. Steam rose from the exposed organs in the cool night air.

  "Sweet merciful Christ," Queen whispered, her face ashen.

  The third bandit turned to flee but made it only three steps before Leon caught him by the ankle. Using the man's body like a makeshift flail, Leon swung him repeatedly against the hard-packed earth of the road. Each impact produced sickening crunches as bones shattered. By the third strike, the bandit's skull had cracked open like an egg, brain matter and blood smearing across the dirt in a grisly paste.

  The fourth found himself lifted by the throat. Leon's fingers dug into the soft flesh beneath the bandit's jaw with brutal force, crushing his windpipe. As the man gasped for air that wouldn't come, Leon slowly, methodically, pressed his thumbs into the bandit's eye sockets. The eyes resisted briefly before bursting like overripe grapes, vitreous fluid running down the bandit's cheeks like obscene tears.

  "IGNITE!" The word tore from Leon's throat as he drove his sword into the chest of the fifth bandit.

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  The effect was immediate and catastrophic. The bandit's torso expanded for a fraction of a second before erupting outward in all directions. Ribs became lethal projectiles, punching through nearby trees. Organs vaporized, transformed into a pink mist that filled the air. Blood sprayed outward in a perfect circle, coating everything within ten feet in a fine crimson sheen.

  Behind the tree line, Adriana doubled over, vomiting violently. Kennedy patted her back, his own face pale beneath his tan.

  "It's okay, Adriana," he said, though his voice betrayed his uncertainty. "He won't hurt us."

  She retched again, tears streaming down her face. "WHY DID HE DO TH—" Her question dissolved into another bout of sickness.

  Sarah peered around the tree trunk, her expression grim. "Something triggered his anger. The turbans, perhaps. A flashback."

  "Y-yeah," Queen agreed, looking greener than her usual composed self. "But he's never done something this brutal before. I think I'm going to be sick too."

  Kennedy shook his head. "I've been friends with him the longest. The turbans on the bandits' heads must have triggered an episode."

  He glanced at Adriana, who had sunk to her knees, wiping her mouth with a shaking hand. "He's called the Jinn of the Crusaders for a reason. He has an ability I call bloodlust. Every time he enters an enraged state, his strength and speed increase dramatically. His urge to kill becomes more violent with his anger."

  Kennedy's voice dropped to a whisper. "But never has he done something this bad before. I wonder what caused it this time."

  In the road, Leon stood among the carnage he'd created, chest heaving like a bellows. Steam rose visibly from his nose and mouth with each exhalation, as if the heat of his rage had literally boiled his blood. For several long minutes, he remained motionless except for his breathing.

  Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the bloodlust faded. The crimson drained from his eyes. The bulging veins receded beneath his skin. His posture slumped, the inhuman strength evaporating.

  Leon dropped to his knees in the blood-soaked dirt, consciousness fleeing as his body surrendered to exhaustion. He collapsed face-forward into the road, surrounded by the dismembered remains of the bandits he'd slaughtered.

  Kennedy cautiously approached, checking to ensure Leon was truly unconscious before lifting him with surprising gentleness. "He'll be out for hours," he explained to the others. "It's always like this after... after an episode."

  They made their way back to town in silence, giving the bloody scene a wide berth. Adriana walked several paces behind the group, her young face haunted by what she'd witnessed. The idealized version of knighthood she'd studied in books had never prepared her for the reality of what battle—true battle, not practice skirmishes—could do to a person's soul.

  The cheerful banter that had accompanied their journey to the cave was gone, replaced by a heavy silence broken only by the sound of their footfalls and Leon's occasional whimper as he dreamed of demons only he could see.